Texas Girls Part III- Back to Our Old Stompin' Grounds

After driving for a million years across interminable stretches of American highway for 20 hours and crashing at Brooke and Chris's house as the sun was coming up Friday morning, Arielle and I rightly slept in until the extravagantly slothful hour of noon. Arielle poked her head out of the bed, took a quick survey of her mental and emotional health, and decided to go back to bed. I should have done the same, but I was already too overcome with the voice in my head that had started the "Days Left in Texas" countdown, so I dragged myself out of bed and attached myself to Brooke for the afternoon for errands. Our first weekend in town was the 10th Annual Spring Bash (Brooke's 28th birthday party). We've been celebrating this together since Brooke's 19th birthday, back when we were all just little nuggets in college. Our core group is about 20+ people, plus all of *their* people, plus those people's people, so Spring Bash is always a good time. Arielle and I crashed at my Dad's house Friday night after said errands, and woke up bright and early on Saturday to head back over to Brooke and Chris's house. The Bash was starting at 2 p.m., and would continue on until 2 a.m. the next morning- people trickled in and out the whole time, but altogether about 30 of us showed up to honor the last ever Spring Bash and wish Brooke a happy birthday. A good time was had by all, and there are pictures to prove it for those who may have a fuzzy memory of the night's events.

We started off with backyard games and beautiful Texas weather, which is always a good way to start a beginning of summertime party.

I can't tell you how long I had been wanting this avocado shake with bubbles. It is incredible.

 Our friend Mike, who serves in the Air Force, showed up to surprise Brooke. No one but Chris knew he was coming, so we all had a good Hallmark moment over that one. I'm being a creeper and taking pictures here. Someone has to document every aspect of our lives, right?

 Chris had grill duty. He later produced some amazing vegetable fajitas, a homemade tomatillo ranch sauce, and some incredible queso. The first half of Spring Bash was going swimmingly.

Arielle and I, soaking in the happiness of being surrounded once more by our gang of pals.

 The sun starts to set...

The game of corn hole in the backyard heats up...

and it's getting serious out there, folks.

 Beck-ay and Beck-ay, both newly banged. 

Here I was explaining to Chris the crucial information that my bangs still had cracks in them because they weren't trained yet. Seriously. I know, I'm totally scintillating.

 

 Far more interesting is the fact that Chris brewed this strawberry beer at home. He added pounds of fresh strawberries, and it smelled great. If I drank beer, I'm sure I would add "and it tastes great, too!" here. But I don't drink beer, so I'll just say that those who did said "it tastes great, too!".

The cast of characters around this table changed all night, but the good conversations were a constant. I'm not humble enough to keep from saying that I have some particularly witty friends. I really missed our silly banter, inside jokes, and stupid nicknames.

 In honor of the inaugural Spring Bash 10 years ago, an old skool game of flip cup was started.

Caleb (as Brooke says, "the prettiest girl I know), Arielle, and Travis, back together again. I spent a lot of time with these wonderful people when I came back to Dallas from Japan.

 This is what winning flip cup looks like. Pure, unadulterated childlike joy, haha.

Once we headed into nightfall, a storm started brewing, as is often bound to happen in Texas in April.

Shortly after this picture was taken, the tarp over the porch began to blow away. Since we were all wet from saving the electronics from the porch, and since the tarp was down for the count and it was 11 at night, there was really nothing left to be done.

Clearly, the most logical course of action was to make an enormous slip and slide in the back yard. So, we did. Happy birthday Beck-ay, indeed.

 J-Ben and Kate  look on, slightly amused, slightly judgmental, but eventually they took their turn. I begged off  due to photographer duties. 

Right about the time the slip and slide got old, the power went out. Here, Arielle sings a ballad from "Wicked" to express her deeply felt emotions regarding this situation.

We ended the night by candlelight, at around 3 a.m. Sunday morning. The power came on at 4 a.m., at which point I summoned a monumental amount of motivation and made myself get up from the couch so that Arielle and I could drive home and get some sort of sleep at my Dad's house, in his den, on our trusty air mattress. We had to be ready to go not too much later that day, since we both had afternoon plans with respective friends and then a planned outing to my favorite club in Dallas, The Church. All in all, going to bed at 5 a.m., again, knowing I'd get about 5 hours of sleep, again, was a price worth paying in exchange for seeing almost every single one of my friends in Dallas in one place.

This Texas trip was off to a very good start :)

Birthday Celebrations- Jumping, Eating, Drinking, Dancing

Since my birthday was on a Wednesday we kept things low key and went out to one of my favorite Italian places in town- I raved about it here after trying it out on Halloween. Afterward we stopped by Olive Garden for their black tie mousse cake (I adore this thing, it's an obsession). They even gave me a little candle when they found out it was my birthday...

The official "birthday party day" was the following Saturday. We started off meeting up with our friends Matt and Paige,  and their son Aidan, at the St. Pat's parade downtown.

 Aidan has his parade plan down- look cute, hold out hand, say please. He cleaned up that day.

 The weather was gorgeous- sunny, warm-ish, not too much of a breeze.

 Bobby, in his festive green thrfit store sweater.

After the parade we grabbed plates of pizza by the slice- that tomato covered pizza was garlic-y goodness. Then it was time to head home for a nap to get ready for the party later that night. I was nerdily stoked about it- like a 7 year old looking forward to a My Little Pony party.

 Later that night we headed out to pick up our friend Rory for our first stop of the night, Jumpstreet- the reason I was filled with the excitement of a 7 year old. Check out our super hi-tech GPS- a post it note of directions stuck to the cracked glove box of our '91 Toyota station wagon. Awesome.

Jumpstreet is an indoor trampoline park, and as such they basically require that you sign your life away upon arriving so that they won't be held responsible for any jumping induced injuries.

Bobby and Alex are super excited to get their jump on.

Rory and I, waiting for our wrist bracelets. You pay by the hour, and they're color coded so they can keep up with when your time is up.

It basically has the feel of a roller skating rink. For a Saturday night, it was remarkably empty. I was really hoping it wouldn't be packed, and my birthday wish was granted.

I know it sounds super nerdy, but seriously this place is fantastic- it's like something you fantasized about making when you were a kid. The huge trampoline area was insane, and it was pretty empty so we had free run of the place.

There were trampoline walls to bounce off of, and the whole area was a patchwork of trampolines divided by bumpers.

This is a video of me executing a fantastic back flip/toe touch combo. Varsity cheerleading might be 10 years in my past as of last Wednesday, but I still got it!

Alex, about to do his own back flip...

Matt and Aidan jumping together...

Trampoline wall birthday party interpretation of the classic "Abbey Road" Beatles' photo. Nerds.

Bobby and Alex didn't appreciate their style being cramped by these rules...

or these, for that matter. I especially like the third one. After our hour was up, we changed into our going out clothes and headed to Boulder for the second half of the night.

We ate at Boulder cafe, and I think I may have fallen in love with their raspberry chipotle BBQ dipping sauce.That hummus plate was my mistress though. And the soup- well, you can't go wrong with poblano pepper corn chowder.

Getting ready for brownie bread pudding birthday dessert- it was spectacular, but how could such a thing not be spectacular?

Apparently Rory and I were very moved by the stirring rendition of Happy Birthday that Bobby and Alex were performing. Either that or we both spontaneously fell asleep.

Yay, another candle! 

After dinner, we headed over to The Catacombs, a bar and club. Let me just say, that place rocked. It reminds me of my favorite dance club in Dallas, The Church. There was a little dance floor in the lower level and the DJ was spinning some really great music. I danced for hours- literally, probably 2 or 3 nonstop. Bobby and I even got to practice West Coast Swing to a few tunes that were amenable to the dance, which was a lot of fun- it's nice to dance outside of class, just for fun. The crowd there was really friendly and we didn't leave until almost 2 a.m. Thankfully Rory let us crash at her apartment so we didn't have to drive home. The next day we slept in until almost noon, and then went out for Thai food in Boulder before driving home.

I'm pretty sure all we did on Sunday was soak our sore jumping/dancing muscles in the hot tub, followed by lots of lazy book reading in bed and an early dinner.  I had so, so, so much fun. I'm very grateful to all my friends and Bobby for making it such a great celebration of turning 28.

Also, for serious, go to Jumpstreet ya'll. It's like a magic time machine back to childhood.

28 on 3/9

First birthday, 1984. Oh yeah, cake is goooood.

A birthday post naturally includes mom too :) Love you and thanks for the birthday!

Today is my 28th birthday. So far, it's been great- I woke up to birthday wishes from Bobby, ran W1D2 of C25K, and have been showered with lots of birthday love via FB, texts, and phone calls. All in all I'm very happy to be turning 28. I was thinking about how much fun I've had in my 20's, and I believe that is part of why I'm not freaking out about turning 28 (turning 27 last year was a lot more strange for me because it felt so much further away from 25 than 26, don't ask my why). I can't say there is anything I've wanted to do that I haven't done so far. If I had put my dreams on hold, or not gone on the adventures I wanted to go on (living in Japan and traveling), or not paid off my debt and completed my master's degree (two big goals I set for myself upon returning home from Japan) I might feel differently. I'm also happy and content to be settled down with Bobby, because I had plenty of time being single, dating around, and generally enjoying a second round of college life as a grad student. I feel like I've been an active participant in my life thus far, making the choices I wanted to, and I'm happy with those choices- the good and the bad. I'm also so very grateful to be able to make such choices, because I know so many people in this world (especially women) don't have the same opportunities.

At this point I'm excited to see where late 20's/early 30's takes me. I've thoroughly enjoyed my past, and I'm grateful for the experiences, but I'm not pining for it. And I'm not worried about the future, or stepping into the 30's soon. I guess what I've learned is that getting older is a lot less scary if you're truly living your life the way you want to. I will fully admit that 28 is a far cry from getting older as we traditionally define it, but right now it's the oldest I've ever been, so I'm just working off of what I know so far :) Lastly, this might be a weird thing to include on a birthday post, but I really love this lecture. I particularly love the part about enabling the dreams of others...

Galapagos Day 4: Isabela Island- Darwin's Lake, Tagus Cove, Elizabeth Bay

On the morning of day four there was an optional early morning power hike around Darwin's Lake on Isabela Island. This island is also well known for the pirate graffiti that covers the rocks. Very few people on board opted for the hike, because you were up, dressed, and off the ship by 6:30. We wanted to get in as many opportunities for exploring the islands as possible though, and this was the only chance to hike Isabela, so Bobby and I and his parents went.

Our dry landing on the rocks- they were covered in graffiti from the early 1900's up to the 1980's. Of course now such defacement of the rocks is illegal, as it should be.

While an interesting sight, it made me realize just how far we have come in our understanding of the importance of conservation and respecting nature (although we certainly have a long, long way to go of course) and how recently such ideas began to take root.

The rocks, as usual, were covered in crabs. I kept worrying I would step on one, even though I shouldn't have since they were so fast.

Bobby's mom on the trail. It started off with two flights of steep stairs, flattened out a bit, and then was pretty steep the entire rest of the way.

Darwin's Lake, a crater filled with water, was about 2/3 of the way up. That's our ship in the background, filled with our sleeping cruise buddies.

I took this picture of Bobby's parents as they made the final ascent through a crack in the lava rocks.

And they took this picture of us right before they reached the top.

Mountain man Bobby on top of the hill.

We headed back down the trail and boarded the panga to go back to the ship at 7:45 for a very quick breakfast, because we were heading out again at a little after 8:00 a.m. for ocean kayaking.

On the panga ride back we came upon these sea turtles mating. They were right up beside our panga (they splashed me as I was taking this picture) and the female was trying to scrape the male off of her with the panga. Smart move, he wasn't that cute, am I right?

We headed out to kayak around Tagus cove, the same area where the panga had dropped us off on the rocks for our morning hike.

This was a total lucky shot- I just held up the camera and clicked one time. It wasn't until we uploaded the pictures that I saw it worked out.

Everyone joked that kayaking would test your relationship, but at the risk of sounding cocky, Bobby and I kicked ass at kayaking. We had a great system down, and we were able to get right up next to the rocks without crashing into them.

The rocks and cliffs around the cove were covered in all sorts of birds- from boobies...

to penguins, to pelicans and flightless cormorants. I even saw a big squirmy octopus clinging to the rocks at the waterline, but a picture would have been worthless since with his black flesh he was virtually invisible up against the black rocks.

We headed back to the ship with some time to kill before lunch because snorkeling had been canceled due to murky water conditions. We spent our time lounging on the top deck and enjoying the weather.

Such a gorgeous day. There were a few lounge chairs up top and we took full advantage of being lazy in the sun.

For dessert after lunch we had this- I'd never heard of it before. It's called a tree tomato. It looks like a tomato, but has the consistency of a peach. It's not very sweet, and it was stewed in a sauce that I think was some sort of spice and sugar reduction. I could have sworn there was cardamom and cinnamon in there, but I'm not 100% certain. I liked it, because I'm not the biggest fan of overly sweet desserts.

This guy joined us for lunch as well. He was sneaky and was stealing grapes and cheese. Smart bird.

After lunch we went to Elizabeth Bay on the panga to take a tour through the mangroves.

These little Galapagos penguins were everywhere on the rocks, and as we continued our tour they were hunting for fish all around us. I thought the sea lions were fast, until I saw these little things shooting through the water.

The panga wove its way through little paths in the mangroves, and eventually, per regulations, we had to shut off the motor and paddle through.

We kept seeing sea turtle after sea turtle. They like to mate in this area because it is warm and shallow and isn't disturbed by ocean currents.

I gave up trying to get a good picture of the sea turtles- it was nearly impossible. They would surface as soon as you put your camera away it seemed.

The penguins would dart in and out of the mangrove roots. The roots were so weird- they grew out of the trunk about halfway up, then dove down into the water.

More penguins- they were all over the rocks and in the water around us. They hunt in pairs and I have no idea how they work together so well when they are moving so fast.

We headed back to the boat to get ready for dinner and hang out on the deck and watch the sunset.

It was definitely worth watching.

It was Denise's birthday, so we celebrated over dinner.

The crew brought her a surprise birthday cake, and everyone on board sang to her.

A good end to a birthday I think :)